Setting aside the Biblical angle and need to inject as much sin as the censor at that time would permit this works very well as a historical drama filled with political intrigue, twisting on the morality/sin axis, and with a terrific battle scene. The set up is superb. Bera (Anouk Aimee), Queen of the titular twin cities, allows Hebrew leader Lot (Stewart Granger) to settle along the River Jordan in order to provide a buffer between her kingdom and the marauding Elamite tribe. Meanwhile, her treacherous brother Astaroth (Stanley Baker) intends using the Elamites to dethrone his sister.
The Sodom-Hebrew arrangement is ugly from the start. Sodom owes its wealth to salt. And it relies for its salt mining and processing on thousands of slaves, literally worked to death, corpses piled high on wagons and dumped in the desert. The Hebrews abhor slavery. But having wandered in the desert for so many years, Lot is in no position to argue and assumes that his people can live peacefully enough alongside the heathens, even accommodating Sodom to the point of returning fleeing slaves.
In fact, in agreeing to live in such close proximity to Sodom, Lot is already in the throes of seduction. In what appears a gesture to seal the deal, Bera presents Lot with her chief female slave Ildith (Pier Angeli), a cunning move designed to undermine Hebrew culture. Naturally, Lot grants Ildith her freedom but her presence creates disharmony, Melchior (Rik Battaglia) leading the dissenters. Astaroth seduces both of Lot’s daughters Shuah (Rosanna Podesta) and Maleb (Claudia Mori).
Eventually, of course, the Hebrews succumb to many of the pleasures of Sodom, especially after discovering their own salt deposits, which instantly make them wealthy, while Astaroth continues to stir up trouble. Lot the politician is more to the forefront than Lot the good and faithful servant, ignoring the slavery for the sake of peace. However, politics remain a sticky maneuver and, in the end, of course, it is God who intervenes, smiting the wicked.
There are surprising depths to the story. Ildrith initially rejects Lot’s overtures of marriage on the grounds that it will diminish his goodness. In trying to improve living conditions for the Hebrews, Lot does the opposite, jeopardizing their beliefs, his actions rendering virtually invisible the distinctions between the opposing cultures, especially when he is up close to the dancing female slaves and men being burned alive on a wheel. Queen Bera is a political genius, skilled at keeping her enemies closer, not just taking advantage of Lot’s weakness but ensuring that Astaroth never catches her cold.
Stewart Granger (The Secret Partner, 1961) is surprisingly good as the Hebrew leader. He might lack the physical presence of the likes of Charlton Heston but proves himself no mean adversary in the various action scenes, two fights with Astaroth for example, the battle itself and in quickly dealing with dissent in the ranks. It would never have occurred to me that a shepherd’s crook was much of a weapon, but in Granger’s hands it proves very effective. He knows he is being seduced, first by Ildith, and then by Sodom, but, as a human being rather than figure of spirituality, is powerless to stop it. Stanley Baker (The Guns of Navarone, 1961) as the queen’s treacherous brother, on the other hand, just looks shifty and mean throughout.
Anouk Aimee (The Appointment, 1969) is excellent as the politically astute monarch, and save for God’s intervention, would have got the better of everyone. Pier Angeli (Battle of the Bulge, 1965) is touching, initially angry at being cast out of Sodom, gradually warming to Lot, but only too aware that in succumbing to her charms he might spoil his own innate goodness, like a femme fatale only too wary of her own powers. Rosanna Podesta (Seven Golden Men, 1965) is good in a supporting role as is Scilla Gabel (Colossus of the Arena, 1962) in a smaller part. Look out, too, for Gabrielle Tinti (Esther and the King, 1960), later best known for his marriage to Laura Gemser of the Black Emmanuelle series, and future spaghetti western anti-hero Anthony Steffen (Django the Bastard, 1969).
Robert Aldrich (The Last Sunset, 1961) creates an excellent addition to the genre, the pace of the drama, with various storylines, never slacking. As a historical picture this aims higher than mere pulp where sexiness and torture are the audience hooks. His battle sequence is outstanding, unusual in that the balance of power shifts throughout, in part through treachery, between the participants. Ken Adam (Dr No, 1962) headed up the production design and Wally Veevers (The Guns of Navarone, 1961) among the half dozen experts contributing to the special effects. Screenplay by Hugo Butler (The Legend of Lylah Clare, 1968) and Giorgio Prosperi (The Golden Arrow, 1962) from the novel by Richard Wormser. Sergio Leone helped out in the direction.
You could not have a more explosive start. In the wake of the seismic slap Sidney Poitier delivered to an arrogant white man in In the Heat of the Night (1967) heist mastermind McClain (Jim Brown) bursts out of the traps by: picking a down-and-dirty knuckle-duster of a fight with hardman Bert (Ernest Borgnine); ramming a limo driven by Harry (Jack Klugman); locking technical wizard Marty (Warren Oates) in an electronic cell; and bracing marksman Dave (Donald Sutherland). It turns out these are all auditions for a $500,000 robbery from the Los Angeles Coliseum during a football match. Nonetheless, the point is made. Despite explanation for the ferocity it scarcely masks the fact that here was a hero unwilling to take any crap from anybody.
The Split follows the classic three acts of such a major crime: recruitment, theft, fall-out. Gladys (Julie Harris) sets up the daring snatch, entrusting a down-on-his-luck McClain – attempting reconciliation with divorced wife Ellie (Diahann Carroll) – with pulling together a gang with particular sets of skills. The clever heist goes smoothly, the cache smuggled out in a gurney into a stolen ambulance, itself hidden in a truck, and spirited away to Ellie’s apartment until the ruckus dies down.
But someone else has a different plan. The stolen money is stolen again. McClain, responsible for its safekeeping, is blamed for its loss, while he suspects all the others. Adding to the complications is a corrupt cop (Gene Hackman). So it’s cat-and-mouse here on in, McClain dodging bullets as he attempts to clear up the mess, find the loot and dodge the cops.
The title refers to the way the way the money is intended to be shared out but it could as easily point to a film of two halves – recruitment/robbery and fall-out. The first section has several stand-out moments – a split-screen credit sequence, Marty’s desperate strip inside the cell to prevent the electronic door closing, an asthma attack mid-robbery, the beat-the-clock element of the heist, Dave’s targeting of tires to create the massive gridlock that facilitates escape. Thereafter, the tension grows tauter, as the thieves fall out with murderous intent.
One of the joys of the picture is watching a bunch of actors on the cusp. Jim Brown (The Dirty Dozen, 1967) was in the throes of achieving a stardom that would soon follow for Hackman (Bonnie and Clyde, 1967), Sutherland (also The Dirty Dozen) and Oates (Return of the Seven, 1966). Brown is tough and cynical in the Bogart mold, a loner with lashings of violence in his locker.
Of the supporting cast, Sutherland’s funny maniac, complete with mordant wit, is the pick and he has the movie’s best line (“The last man I killed for $5,000. For $85,000 I’d kill you seventeen times.”) Hackman reveals an intensity that would be better showcased in The French Connection (1971) and Borgnine, Oscar-winner for Marty (1955), reverts to his tough guy persona. Having said that, you only get glimpses of what they are capable of.
Making the biggest step-up is Scottish director Gordon Flemyng whose last two pictures were Dr Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks’ Invasion Earth A.D. 2150 (1966). He helms the picture with polish and confidence, allowing the young bucks their screen moments while wasting little time in getting to the action and pulling off a mean car chase.
Crime writer Richard Stark (pseudonym of Donald E. Westlake) was careful to sell the rights to his books one-by-one so that no single studio could acquire his iconic thief Parker. That accounted for him being renamed Walker in Point Blank (1967), Edgar in Pillaged (1967), Macklin in The Outfit (1973), Stone in Slayground (1983) and Porter in Payback (1999) before finally appearing in original name in Parker (2013).
Anyone claiming to be gaslighted will have unwittingly invoked the memory of an English writer who died over 60 years ago. Alfred Hitchcock paid tribute to him in adapting his fiendish play, Rope (1948). Hangover Square (1945) starring Linda Darnell was another of his novels to hit the screen. In all there have been over 50 film and television adaptations of his works.
One of his most famous publications was a trilogy focusing on a London barman and a barmaid in love with him whom he casts aside. I had read it, as I had all of Patrick Hamilton’s novels, with enormous pleasure. The trilogy was published in 1935 under the title Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky. So it was with some trepidation that I realized Bitter Harvest was based on the middle novel of the trilogy. The DVD had sat, unwatched, in my collection for a couple of years because I was put off by the title, the no-name cast and journeyman director, assuming some routine tale with a sad ending.
Now I’m kicking myself I ignored it for so long. It’s a little gem that packs a punch, climaxing with a stylistic twist, and held together by a virtuoso performance by Janet Munro, one-time Disney ingenue in pictures like Swiss Family Robinson (1960), as she twists the audience and her lover round her little finger. And all the way through, despite the self-imposed travails, she manages to evoke sympathy.
Virgin Jennie (Janet Munro) escapes humdrum life in Wales, running a small shop in a run-down village, looking after her ungrateful father, and about to be dumped as a full-time carer onto a pair of aunts, when she meets smooth salesman Andy (Terence Alexander). He gets her drunk on champagne, whisks her back to his flat where he rapes her. Shame prevents her going home. Friendly barman Bob (John Stride) takes pity on her when she reveals she’s pregnant and lets her sleep, untouched by him, in his bed. Naturally, the relationship progresses, though she makes no move to find a job. But she wants her “share” of the good things in life and a barman isn’t going to provide them.
Bob soon realizes she isn’t quite the docile waif delighted to be looked after. “When have I taken orders from you?” she snaps. He’s shocked when she reveals that her pregnancy was a ploy, and taken aback when she rejects his marriage proposal. Instead, she’s out on the town with actor neighbor Charles (Colin Gordon) who takes her to a showbiz bash where she wangles an introduction to impresario Karl (Alan Badel). “I’ve got something they want and they can have it and they’ll pay for it,” shows Bob which way the wind is blowing.
The movie begins with a drunken smartly dressed Jennie, long red hair cut in a more fashionable bob, returning to her upper mews apartment. She’s so sozzled she drops her handbag on the steps, only stopping to retrieve her keys before kicking the bag down the staircase. Opening the door, she tosses the key into the street. Inside, she sets about destroying the chintzy apartment, pours whisky over a photo of man later revealed as Karl, smashes bottles, upends furniture, tosses dresses out the window, scrawls something in lipstick on the mirror.
Then we’re into flashback telling the story I’ve just outlined. When she sets herself up to become Karl’s mistress, you think there’s a third act to come. But the movie cuts instead to the mews apartment and the by now dead Jennie.
What distinguishes it is the set-up. Jennie appears initially as the victim until she exerts control, using Bob, and presumably intending to work her way up. Quite how her life came to end in suicide is never revealed. But director Peter Graham Scott (Subterfuge, 1968) has the foresight to realize he doesn’t have to go into the degradation and shame, just show consequence.
And it’s framed with excellent performances. Bob, determined to improve himself, buys a book a month. Barmaid Ella (Anne Cunningham), in love with him, has to endure a scene where he tells her all about Jenny. Bob’s landlady isn’t going to get on a moral high horse about him having a woman in his room when she can rook him for increased rent. You can tell, even if Jenny ignores the obvious, what kind of life she will have as Karl’s mistress when in their first moment of intimacy he slaps her face and rips her expensive dress to make a bandage.
There’s another scene just as shocking and if it was not edited out by the censor at the time it still came as a surprise to see fleeting glimpse of a naked breast, a good year before the U.S. Production permitted similar in The Pawnbroker.
As I said, the transition of Janet Munro (Hide and Seek, 1964) from victim to predator is exceptionally well-done, her iron fist cleverly concealed for most of the film. And it’s admirable, too, that John Stride, whose career was mostly in television, doesn’t come across as a hapless suitor, though obviously he is gullible. Alan Badel (Arabesque, 1966) only has a couple of scenes but makes a huge impact. Barbara Ferris (Interlude, 1968) has a small part.
Highlight of Peter Graham Scott’s directorial career, well-paced, measured, drawing out good performances all round, especially in the boldness of the closure. Ted Willis (Flame in the Streets, 1961) does an excellent job of updating the novel, though one flaw is that while the early section is set in Wales there’s no sign of a Welsh accent.
Falling into the unusual category of Saturday afternoon matinee with a message, American cowboy Jim Sinclair (Hugh O’Brian) and sidekick Jim Henry (Tom Nardini) hightail it across the Atlantic to help the wildlife conservation efforts of game rancher Wing Commander Hayes (John Mills) who faces sabotage at every turn by another rancher Karl Bekker (Nigel Green). It combines Hatari!-style action and interesting storylines with Disney-animal-cuteness (a domesticated zebra called Pyjama Tops).
To get the conservation element out of the way – Hayes is concerned that letting animals roam free will result in overgrazing, turning the countryside into a dustbowl and endangering a variety of species. That Hayes is already talking about animals becoming extinct is way ahead of the common perception of Africa at the time. His plan is to round up the wild animals and fence them in, this kind of ranching preventing foodstocks becoming depleted. Bekker’s objection is that wild animals could carry infections such as East Coast Fever that will endanger his herd.
Romantic interest is supplied by the already-engaged nurse Fay Carter (Adrienne Corri) while orphan Sampson (Charles Malinda) tugs at the heart strings. There is a fair measure of authenticity, glorious aerial shots of elephants and buffalo and other species, tribal dances by the Masai while the Sinclair/Henry rodeo-style method of catching the wild animals, with lasso rather than giants nets as in Hatari!, ramps up the excitement quotient, not least when Sinclair goes one-on-one with an enraged rhino. As you might expect, there is also ample opportunity for Sinclair to encounter a deadly snake and crocodile and it wouldn’t be an African picture without a stampede.
Although villainous, Bekker is not without logical argument, not just the fear of infection which would decimate wildlife as much as soil erosion, but his own fears that taming wild animals would upset the balance of nature, and, on a personal level, the lack of respect for territorial rights. Of course, when push comes to shove, he resorts to rifle and fist to settle arguments.
Atmospheric, well-made, engaging and at times exciting, there is enough going on here to keep the picture ticking along – a hunt for a lost and bewildered Sinclair, questions about home, and the spectacular wildlife rodeo show. Unlike Born Free (1966) and any other animal picture for that matter although wildlife takes narrative center stage we are not subjected to countless cute four-legged specimens.
Hugh O’Brian (Ambush Bay, 1966) could be a latter-day Tarzan (or more correctly Jungle Jim since he is never in loincloth) but Scottish actress Adrienne Corri (The Viking Queen, 1967) is not a jungle adventuress but a principled counter to his easy manner. With every chance to rely on the stiff-upper-lip of an English war hero, John Mills (A Black Veil for Lisa, 1968) does anything but and turns in another engaging performance and if you are looking for a decent chap to deliver a conservation message he is definitely your man without being obsessively annoying. Nigel Green (The Skull, 1965) adds to his portfolio of interesting characters as a smooth-talking rough-edged bad guy while Tom Nardini (Cat Ballou, 1965) impresses. Look out for a fleeting glimpse of Hayley Mills at the start.
Director Andrew Marton, who had been involved in helming The Longest Day (1962) and second unit director of Ben-Hur (1959) and Cleopatra (1963), was something of a wild animal specialist with Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion (1965) in the kitty as well as a dozen episodes in total of television series Flipper (1965) and Daktari (1966). But he is at home as much with the human aspects of the story as with the animal. Producer Ivan Tors was a sometime rival to Walt Disney in the family film market with Flipper (1963) and Zebra in the Kitchen (1965) as well as small-screen Flipper and Daktari.
Mistakenly described on imdb as a TV pilot, this was a genuine feature film that happened to produce a television spin-off series Cowboy in Africa. It was screened for the trade on May 5, 1967, reviewed in the feature film section of Variety on May 17, and its box office figures can be tracked through Variety – opening in San Francisco and Kansas City in June, for example, Baltimore in July, Detroit in August and Boston and Louisville in September. In some situations it was double-billed with El Dorado (1967).
Indulge me. Perhaps the quirkiness that runs through The Long Goodbye is infectious. Here’s my question: can you buy matches loose in America? Do they sell them in bags and not boxes? If boxes, I’m assuming there’s no striking surface on one side of the box. Because here’s the niggling thought that was running through my mind all during the picture. I imagined the pockets of private eye Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) bulging with loose matches. Because if they were in a carton, like the cigarettes he appears to chain-smoke, wouldn’t he have to take them out of the box and empty them into his pockets or take them out one at a time from the box but not use the striking edge because, apparently, it’s just a lot easier to strike the match off any solid surface that’s handy – walls, tables, floors. Just asking.
I’m also asking; is he a lush? Or is the celebrated chasing after cat food opening just an attempt to find something as quirky as the credit sequence in Harper (1966) where a hungover Paul Newman re-uses his coffee grounds. Because Marlowe wakes up at half past three in the morning fully dressed and I’m guessing that’s not because he fell asleep reading a book.
It’s rammed full of “characters,” Dr Verringer (Henry Gibson) has a very curious running gait, there’s a gateman who can’t let a car pass without lapsing into an impression of a movie star and for neighbors Marlowe has the “Goodbye Girls” – as they’d be marketed in a Bond or spy film – a bevy of stoned topless yoga-loving females whose friendly overtures Marlowe has clearly resisted, providing him with some kind of moral rectitude.
Of course, this isn’t noir and you could argue this updated version doesn’t come close to the character author Raymond Chandler envisioned. There’s no mean streets here, not unless they’ve been tucked away somewhere between the very sunny side of Los Angeles and the upscale Malibu beach houses.
What is it is – is original. Set aside Marlowe’s mumbling and the menagerie of animals assembled, not just the cat but a fierce guard dog that scares Marlowe to death and mutts trained, presumably, to walk into the middle of a highway and ignore the honking horns, or to shag each other as if auditioning for porn.
Once the movie gets going, Marlowe is a proper detective in an immoral world where corruption doesn’t even have the decency to slink under the surface and self-indulgence is all. He’s got a case to crack – initially tracing missing Hemingwayesque alcoholic writer Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden) – but he’s not on the clock when he decides to investigate the supposed suicide of old buddy Terry Lennox (Joe Boulton) accused of the murder of his wife.
He’s a pretty clever snoop, finding ways into places he’s barred from entering, following suspicious people he’s not being paid to follow and, in the end, delivering his own kind of justice. There’s betrayal a-plenty, misbehaving wives and husbands, cops inventing their own rules. But mostly he’s a good guy adrift in a different wealthy immoral world. And there’s more humor than you’d expect. Some pretty good lines and sight gags. The hood who’s meant to be keeping his eyes on Marlowe fetching the binoculars so he can spy on the topless girls, a gangster whose preferred mode of apology is to strip stark naked.
And there’s a restless camera. It can’t stop moving, prowling around the characters who are mostly static, as if everyone has something to hide And just when you think, missing man found, this is all too aimless for words, there’s an exceptionally sharp crack of violence as gangster Marty (Mark Rydell) smashes a bottle across the face of his girlfriend (Jo Ann Brody) in the hunt for his missing loot. Contrapuntal is the suicide of Roger Wade, sucked into the surf, wife (Nina van Pallandt) and Marlowe not just helpless, but in trying to save him, in danger of drowning themselves.
If it wasn’t for people roughing him up, cops and gangsters alike, Marlowe might well have spent his time hunting for cat food. As it is, his antenna are up, he’s sniffing around, and pretty capable, as a solid private dick should be, of putting two and three together and working out what the hell has been going on. There’s a noir twist. Usually it’s the dame pulling a fast one on the hero, he’s it’s an old buddy.
There’s enough quirkiness to get you hooked and keep you thinking you’re watching an offbeat detective story, when, really, the quirkiness is some kind of stylistic MacGuffin to lure you into a more straightforward and very satisfying sleuth picture. You could be fooled into thinking director Robert Altman (M*A*S*H, 1970) had tossed away the detective story rule book, but he’s not, he’s just reframing the character for a different era.
There was a trend for movie directors to act – John Huston (The Cardinal, 1963) a repeat offender, Roman Polanski going in for a bit of nose-slitting in the same year’s equally stylistic Chinatown, and here we have Mark Rydell (The Reivers, 1969) who had been an actor in the 1950s.
But he doesn’t build his character from the inside as neatly as Sterling Hayden (The Godfather, 1972), adrift on a sea of booze, and one-time folk singer Nina van Pallandt who keeps her femme fatale credentials close to her chest. Admittedly, Elliott Gould (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, 1969) can sometimes be an acquired taste, but here he fits the groove perfectly. Don’t let the exterior, the mumbling, the self-absorption, fool you, this is the classic detective re-born.
Leigh Brackett (Hatari!, 1962), who had a hand in the original The Big Sleep (1946), wrote the script with an occasional improv. But this is very much a director’s picture.
These days, this would be called a re-boot, and it set a standard for the re-boot that’s never been matched, taking a much-loved screen character and refashioning him in a way that not only works but makes you think Humphrey Bogart could have done a better job.
A flop at the time – a paltry $1 million in rentals at the U.S. box office, less (barely $800,0000) abroad with the $1.5 million from television not enough to keep the red ink at bay – this has now, rightly, has come into its own as a majestic directorial triumph. Some credit due , too, to producer Elliott Kastner who made Harper and backed Altman’s singularly alternative vision.
I saw this at the cinema not for some kind of anni reissue (it’s year late for that) but just because reviving old pictures is what arthouses do.
A bit more action and this could have been a John Wick-style winner because C.I.A. agent Dan Slater (Yul Brynner) is a big-time bad ass, all steely stare and resolve, and no time for anyone who gets in his way as he investigates the unexpected death of his son in the Austrian Alps.
It’s probably not this picture’s fault that any time a cable car hovers into view I expect to see Clint Eastwood or Richard Burton clambering atop all set to cause chaos, or any time a skier takes off down the slopes anticipate some James Bond malarkey. Luckily, director Franklin J. Schaffner (Planet of the Apes, 1968) avoids inviting comparison in those areas but rather too much reliance on the tourist elements of the ski world puffs out what would otherwise be a tighter storyline. And he also sets too much store by loud music to warn the audience of impending danger.
Slater is out of the ruthless espionage mold and, convinced on paltry evidence that his son has been murdered, determines to track down the perpetrators. There is a reversal of the usual plot in that those he asks for help are unwilling to give it, retired agent Frank Wheatly (Clive Revill) and chalet girl deluxe Gina (Britt Ekland) who initially views him as an older man to be fended off but turns out to have the vital information he seeks.
There’s a lot of tension but not much action and today’s modern vigilante would have beaten the information out of anybody who crossed his path rather than taking Slater’s rather docile approach. Despite this, the relentless tone set by Slater ensures violent explosion is imminent. To be sure, you will probably guess early on, from the appearance at the outset of some Russians, that Slater is heading into a trap, but the reasons are kept hidden long enough.
There are some excellent touches. Slater’s boss (Lloyd Nolan) has a nice line in keeping his office underling in check, chalet hostess (Moira Lister) is all style and snip, the Russian Col. Berthold (Anton Diffring) clipped and menacing. And the skiing sequences that relate to the picture are well done while the others are decently scenic.
It’s a shame that Yul Brynner (Villa Rides, 1968) is in brusque form for it gives Britt Ekland (Stiletto, 1969) in a switch from her comedy breakthroughs not enough to do. Brynner mines a good bit more emotion than is normally the case. Clive Revill is excellent as the former agent who has had his fill of espionage and dreads being pulled back into this murky world.
Producer Hal E. Chester clearly spent more on this than on The Comedy Man (1964) but with varying results, top-notch aerial photography but dodgy rear projection. And there are some screenwriting irregularities, such as why conduct the son’s funeral before the father is present. Frank Tarloff (Father Goose, 1964) and Alfred Hayes (Joy in the Morning, 1965) would be the ones to question on this issue since they wrote the screenplay based on the Henry Maxfield novel.
The mysterious masked Scarecrow was creepiest character ever put on celluloid by Disney. A lot of the action takes place at dusk so it is soaked in crepuscular atmosphere. Filmed against the sky, every horse seems to thunder past. Gallows swing ominously. Coupled with a strong storyline and clever ruses by alter ago the mild-mannered clergyman Dr Syn (Patrick McGoohan), this is one for the Under-Rated Hall of Fame.
While the character has antecedents in folk-hero Robin Hood, the Scarecrow is more rooted in the brutal reality of Britain in the mid-1700s when, to fund a host of foreign wars, King George taxes already-impoverished peasants to the hilt, making smuggling essential to survival. The Scarecrow is not just the underworld kingpin but has operational skills a spy would be proud of, coded messages, secret rendezvous et al.
Ruthless General Pugh (Geoffrey Keen), sent to rid the countryside of this menace, makes no bones about putting the squeeze on the wives of villagers to force them into providing the information he requires. Outwitted from the off by Dr Syn, the infuriated general begins torching houses. Helped unwittingly by local squire and judge Thomas Banks (Michael Hordern), the general acquires an informer Joseph Ransley (Patrick Wymark).
This is not the bucolic England of Robin Hood or other historical yarns of Hollywood invention featuring glorious scenery and ample female cleavage. Here, a barmaid is likely to use a meat cleaver to defend herself. This was also the era of press gangs (see Billy Budd), where government-appointed hoodlums would raid a village and carry off young men as unwilling recruits for the Royal Navy. It was a time of imminent insurrection, the King’s subjects in the North American colonies on the point of sedition. And when money – or its lack – infected every area of society.
Although like any super-hero the Scarecrow occasionally comes to the rescue, the movie is distinguished by the fact that is more often Dr Syn who subverts the general through cunning subterfuge. Victory through force of arms is impossible since violence visited on the king’s troops would result in a multiplication of their numbers. So it is more a battle of wits. In addition, the Scarecrow faces a dilemma – how to punish a traitor with such severity his authority is never questioned while at the same time upholding the principles of Dr Syn? Just how these issues and others are resolved make for a very involving picture.
Minor subplots – a romance between the squire’s daughter and an officer, a deserter from the Navy and the presence of an American (Tony Britton) – serve the main story. So the narrative remains taut. And, interestingly, that hangs upon what characters have to lose rather than gain. It is not about greed but survival.
For a Disney picture there is considerable directorial vigor, not just the depiction of the smuggling and pounding hooves accompanying peril or escape, but two terrific trial scenes, a masterly escape conducted in the complete absence of on-screen music and, of course, the terrifying vision of the Scarecrow himself.
The acting has a sterling quality. While Michael Hordern was a stage star, the film primarily called upon actors who later achieved fame on British television programs. Patrick McGoohan headlined The Prisoner (1967-1968), George Cole was in Minder (1979-1994), Patrick Wymark and Alan Dobie in The Plane Makers (1963-1965) Geoffrey Keen in Mogul (1965-1972), and Tony Britton in Robin’s Nest (1977-1981). McGoohan had a previous television incarnation as Danger Man (1960-1961) and Cole had been a con man in the St Trinian’s films. You can also spot in small roles Kay Walsh, a former British leading lady, and a young Richard O’Sullivan, later star of Man About the House (1973-1976).
Director James Neilson was a Disney favorite, having helmed Moon Pilot (1962), Bon Voyage! (1962) and Summer Magic (1963). But these were all lightweight features and it is to his credit he met the challenge of turning Dr Syn, Alias the Scarecrow into a dramatic actioner. British writer Robert Westerby (The Square Ring, 1953), who also created the source material for Kali-Yug, Goddess of Vengeance (1963), fashioned the screenplay from the books of William Buchanan and Russell Thorndike
Although Disney had cannibalized the Davy Crockett television series in the 1950s, stitching together episodes for feature films, this was something of a reversal. As part of its The Magical Wonderful World of Disney television program the studio had shown The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh as a three-part mini-series while Dr Syn, Alias the Scarecrow was released as a movie in Britain, rare copies of the former changing hands for large sums.
Reversal of roles from Twisters, which I saw on the same day. Here it’s the gal who’s loud, locked and loaded and the fella who’s the introvert laden down with guilt. But here it’s also the female who’s top-billed. The good news is that with some reservations the pairing of Scarlett Johansson (Asteroid City, 2023) and Channing Tatum (Dog, 2022) works quite well. But any screen chemistry is killed off by the dumbest story you’ve ever heard.
I’m assuming that the only reason they’ve taken this tack, of ramming a top female star into a tale of the lunar landing lunacy, is that, consistent with gender issues of the period, no woman would be high up enough in the space industry job rankings to become a foil for the launch director. What’s really quite bizarre is that the crux of the story – faking the moon landing – has been done before in Capricorn One (1977) and that Apollo 11 must have encountered a bucket of vital issues requiring to be solved rather than one that necessitated the stealing of a television from a store on launch day.
It’s true the same guy was in charge of Apollo 1 – where the crew perished – as on Apollo 11 but it seems an awful stretch to fictionalize this character, though maybe because Gene Kranz is still alive that was essential. I doubt if he’d have lent his name to this half-assed storyline that sees ad exec Kelly (Scarlet Johansson) detailed by shady black hat Moe (Woody Harrelson) to pep up NASA PR to stop Government finance draining away and to turn the astronauts into heroes before they’ve undertaken anything heroic. Launch director Cole (Channing Tatum) gets in her way at every turn so in some senses it’s typical rom-com, irritating individual coming to be loved by the irritated one.
So, excepting that Kelly is decked out in skin-tight 1950s/early 1960s Mad Men outfits and channels her inner Marilyn Monroe – all the men here excluding Moe and Cole fall like ninepins for her obvious charms – this should have been at least an interesting duel in the way of most rom-coms. She is certainly sassy, bright, cute, clever and manipulative and in any other orbit her tangle with Channing Tatum would probably have worked, especially given he’s got form in this genre – though admittedly The Lost City (2022) was a bit of genre mash-up.
I’m no screenwriter but even I could see it would make more sense if she continually tried to spike Moe’s fake landing notion rather than be blackmailed into it because (shock horror) she was once an unconvicted grifter. It wouldn’t have taken much either to come up with a better meet-cute than this lame effort. If the best stab a screenwriter can take is to label advertising a “legal scam” then you’re in serious trouble.
Theoretically, this had a ton more star power going for it than Twisters, which just goes to show how little marquee value has to do with box office success. So, mostly, I was watching this lamenting what could have been. Two very talented actors with plenty hits in their slipstream and dovetailing well together lost in an absolute farrago of nonsense. Occasionally, given the leaden premise, the director Greg Berlanti (Love, Simon, 2018) showed touches of finesse, the way, for example, Kelly’s assistant was set up with a weedy engineer.
From today’s perspective when everything is marketable, it might have seemed logical that the Government would have sought marketing tie-ins with major corporations – except that didn’t happen. A black cat running across the set of the fake landing ruined the fake landing gig, and this tower of babel collapsed with much less.
This has done worse than summer’s other $100 million turkey, Horizon. Probably not the death knell for rom-coms after unexpected hit Anyone but You (2023) relit that moribund genre and probably won’t stop Apple flashing the cash for other ill-considered vanity projects, but this was out of most cinemas after a week and will most likely make a quicker dash to streaming than originally intended.
It’s all very well for streamers to wise up to the fact that a cinema release is a clever marketing ploy, creating more public awareness through a gazillion reviews, and to take advantage of the product shortage, but it’s self-defeating in the end as anyone tempted to switch on to the streamer version will already have read the gazillion reviews.
Really, this plot is so stupid that it deserves no more than two stars and I’m only giving it three because I thought the pairing of Johansson and Tatum did work.
On a brighter note, I saw a trailer for Megalopolis which has finally won a cinema release, and in Imax too, despite poor critical reception and I have to say the visuals looked great. Though, as we’ve seen here, visuals and stars won’t make up for a terrible story.
Should have been a joyful reunion. Director Frank Capra linking up again with Columbia for whom he had won four Oscars in the 1930s and virtually single-handed lifted the studio out of the minor league. After coming unstuck with It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) – huge flop on initial release and not by this point having found its later more appreciative audience – he had backed off from Hollywood, only five more movies, none acclaimed, the last being the distinctly lightweight A Pocketful of Miracles (1961) with Glenn Ford.
Capra might have seemed a strange candidate for a sci fi picture given the bulk of his movies had been heartfelt comedies or dramas, but he’d become something of the go-to director for science fact programs, making, for Bell Laboratories, television documentaries on the sun, cosmic rays and the circulatory system. Dealing with the intricacies of space travel would have been catnip especially as he was in the process of making an industrial short Rendezvous in Space (1964) to show at the World’s Fair in New York that started in April 1964, and would, unexpectedly, proved to be his final production.
He’d bought the rights to the Matt Caidin bestseller on publication in March 1964 and and tied up a deal with Columbia’s first vice-president of worldwide production, namely Mike Frankovich who assigned the screenplay to Walter Newman (Cat Ballou, 1965). The novel was both simpler and more complicated. There was only one astronaut, Richard Pruett, and he faced the same problem of diminishing oxygen supply with old buddy Ted Dougherty planning to launch an untried Gemini as a rescue mission. But much of the narrative was given over to flashback, test pilot and trainee astronaut plus romance, with Russians planning to steal the rescue glory.
By June Capra was back on the studio lot prepping the picture and, still under the Frankovich aegis, it was announced as going into production in early 1966. So it took a good couple of years before Frankovich decided the Capra wasn’t, after all, the right man for the job.
By the time Capra was squeezed out, Frankovich was in the process of transforming himself into one of the new breed of producers, gamekeepers-turned-poachers, who had jumped from top level studio management into independent production. He prefaced his move by commenting, “Now that I’ve turned Columbia around and we’ve all these blockbusters,” it was time to head out to pastures new with the determined aim of “making a buck I can keep.”
But Frankovich was unusual in that prior to taking an executive role at Columbia he had made his bones as a producer (from serials and B-pictures to Footsteps in the Fog, 1955) in the 1940s-1950s. Frankovich set up an initial five-picture slate with Columbia comprising Marooned, The Looking Glass War (1970), Cactus Flower (1969), There’s a Girl in My Soup (1970) and Doctor’s Wives (1971), shortly after adding Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (1969), half these titles scoring highly at the box office.
Columbia provided 100 per cent finance. Had he greenlit these pictures while at Columbia, he would have earned far less as a high-flying executive than as an independent enjoying a straightforward production fee plus a healthy share of the profits.
You get the impression from this ad in “Variety” on December 17, 1969, that “Marooned” was somewhat incidental to the opening of the first new theater on Broadway in three decades.
But having cut loose Capra, Frankovich waited until he had taken the project under his own personal wing in his new independent production company before hiring a replacement. He knew who he wanted and was willing to wait 18 months until his target, John Sturges, became free.
And in the way of neophytes wanting to make their mark quickly he did it in the usual manner – by making salary headlines. But rather than forking out for a marquee actor he made John Sturges the highest-paid director in Hollywood on a $750,000 fee, 50 per cent more than he had received for Ice Station Zebra (1968). He earned more than star Gregory Peck (on $600,000), still recovering from a box office trough. From six movies in the same number of years he mnaged only one hit. He should have worked with Sturges before now but had pulled out of Ice Station Zebra.
In fact, Peck was the only star in the Frankovich orbit. Apart from Walter Matthau in Cactus Flower and to a lesser extent Natalie Wood in Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice and Peter Sellers for There’s a Girl in My Soup, Frankovich banked on new, inexpensive, talent. None of the crew in the capsule for Marooned had any marquee status. He turned Goldie Hawn into a star with Cactus Flower and There’s a Girl in My Soup and gave a boost to the fledgling Hollywood careers of Christopher Jones (Wild in the Streets, 1968), Pia Degermark (Elvira Madigan, 1967) and Anthony Hopkins (The Lion in Winter, 1970) in The Looking Glass War. Both the careers of Wood and Sellers were on downward spirals before Frankovich intervened. Crenna and Hackman reunited for Doctors’ Wives along with Dyan Cannon from Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice.
John Sturges was a renowned gadget freak. He loved scientific detail, couldn’t get it out of his head that the Russians had beaten the U.S. into space. He dumped the Newman screenplay, dropping the romance, and despatched screenwriter Mayo Simon to Houston to research the NASA background, interviewing astronauts, wives, programmers, and to “spend a lot of time with the Apollo playbook.” The idea of sending three astronauts into space was already being considered by NASA.
But authenticity came at a price. The reality was that space travel proved every bit as dangerous as novelist Matt Caiden had imagined. In January 1967, three crew members preparing for space travel died on the ground testing equipment. Pressure mounted on Columbia to cancel the picture. The disaster severely dented the box office prospects of the distinctly lightweight The Reluctant Astronaut (1967). Frankovich changed tack and trimmed the tale so that it focused on the astronauts setting off for home only to discover their retro rockets won’t fire “and they don’t know why.”
Sturges decided not to opt for split screen, so effective in Grand Prix (1966) in telling a complicated story from multiple angles, and combined blue screen, hydraulics and models. A full-size Ironman One was mocked up and dangled on wires. Concerned the science might overwhelm the narrative, Frankovich, “afraid it wasn’t human enough,” instructed Simon to given the women “more to do” and humanize the Peck character (whose wife is not involved) by giving him a son of college age (though a scene between them was never used).
Frankovich didn’t stint on the budget now and splurged $8 million on the project and upgraded it to a 70mm roadshow. Nor was he so hung up on Columbia that he rejected an opportunity to film on MGM’s largest soundstage where production got underway in November 1968. Production ran through till April 1969, with Peck not required until February. Where the screenwriter depicted the astronauts as “dirty and unshaven and their capsule grungy and cramped like a phone booth,” Sturges opted for a cleaner, sleeker look, and in a bigger capsule.
The designers copied the Apollo 1 capsule and the orbiting laboratory was an early version of the Skylab. North American Aviation and Philco-Ford, suppliers to NASA, helped with designing elements of the hardware. Initially opposed to the project, NASA relented to sufficiently to permit use of its logo though stopping short of allowing access to its Houston HQ yet softening its attitude later on.
Some of the problems of filming space had already been solved – by Stanley Kubrick for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). But Kubrick wasn’t inclined to share his trade secrets, so Sturges went the low-tech route of wires, hydraulics and back projection. “The biggest problem was making everyone look weightless,” said Sturges, “We used every trick in the book.”
Sturges didn’t feel in competition with Kubrick. “Marooned was scientific,” explained Sturges. “It was about engineering. The Kubrick film was about evolution and the rebirth of humanity. One was nuts-and-bolts, the other poetry.”
By the time the film was released, Americans had landed on the moon and the first orbiting laboratory was about to launch into space. Nor did Sturges believe that astronauts could actually end up marooned, insisting that was “a possibility, not a probability” and that, in any case, methods of effecting a rescue were available.
The movie was marginal roadshow length, but it was felt the subject matter and style was more akin in release terms to 2001: A Space Odyssey than Planet of the Apes. Some of the “original rough language” was cut to achieve a G-rating. It was the debut movie at the Ziegfield in New York, the first purpose-built movie theater in the city in decades. Box office polarized: opening to a smash $50,000 at the 1392-seater Egyptian in Los Angeles compared to a tepid $20,000 at the 1200-seat Ziegfield.
When Apollo 13 (“Houston, we have a problem”) in April 1970 looked as if it would end in tragedy, it could have spelled curtains for the movie, now well into its general release. The averting of the danger provided a box office boost but not enough and it racked up a very modest $4.1 million at the domestic box office. It won the Oscar for best visual effects.
Excepting Frankovich who signed a deal to make a further dozen movies for Columbia, nobody came out of this well. Peck only made three films in the next five years, Sturges quit Le Mans (1971) after seven weeks and only made four more pictures. Mayo Simon was given a crack at Sturges’ next project, back to World War Two, for The Yards of Essendorf, to star Warren Beatty, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Ursula Andress and a 500-ton snowplow, but that stalled on the starting grid.
SOURCES: Glenn Lovell, Escape Artist, The Life and Times of John Sturges (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008) p263, 268-271; Gary Fishgall, Gregory Peck, A Biography (Scribner, 2002), p266-268; “Hollywood Report,” Box Office, March 11, 1964; “Hollywood Report,” Box Office, June 29, 1964; “Columbia 83-Film Production Slate Biggest in History, Frankovich Says,” Box Office, January 3, 1966; “See Frankovich Going Indie Next Winter or Spring,” Variety, May 24, 1967, p3; “Mike Frankovich’s 5 for Columbia,” Variety, January 17, 1968, p3; “Flight of Exec Brains to Production,” Variety, July 24, 1968, p3; “Metro’s Stage No 27 for Columbia Film,” Variety, November 6, 1968, p24; Wanda Hale, “Producer: Chicken or Egg,” Variety, November 13, 1968, p32; Wayne Warga, “Author, Director, All Out For Space-Age Authenticity,” Los Angeles Times, April 27, 1969; “Nowadays Anything A Box Office Plus or Minus,” Variety, September 3, 1969, p6; “G for Marooned After Dialog Cut,” Variety, November 12, 1969, p3; “Picture Grosses,” Variety, December 17, p9; “Picture Grosses,” Variety, December 24, p9.
Hilariously bad. Worth a look if you are short of contenders for the Razzies. However, I do reserve the right to accept that I am wrong and that as a male of the species it’s really my own fault if I can’t get to grips with a female version (director, writers, cast) of the shark sub-genre. If you’ll recall I was recently singing the praises of Under Paris, a highly inventive and improbable ecological take on the shark picture but solidly done in which the predators showed no mercy and the director hadn’t a sentimental bone in his body. I’ve also been keen on the various iterations of The Meg. So if anyone’s going to cut a shark movie a bit of slack it would be me. But I’m right out of slack.
For those of you who thought S Club 7 ditty “Reach” would if anything act as a shark repellent I’ve got some bad news for you, although I should add the rider that maybe the problem is that Ruth (Ellouise Shakespeare-Hart) is dancing as well as singing and in shallow water. But at least though the singer was first up on the shark menu if you watch closely you’ll see the correct way to do the actions for the tune. There is a right way, you know, and this picture is full of people who know the right way to do all sorts of insignificant stuff, like the etiquette of peeing in the ocean (quite different from a swimming pool), and what’s the difference between a yacht and a boat (a class thing, apparently) and the clincher – the correct use of the ellipsis.
So five gals are somewhere in the Pacific (I guess, could be Blackpool with fake palm trees for all I know) for a wedding and they have the bright idea to temporarily maroon former lovers Kayla (Natalie Mitson) and Meg (no irony intended, I’m sure) on a tiny desert island until they make up. They had split up after being beaten up by a gang of homophobic females. Well, Meg (Hiftu Quaseem) was beaten up, and now suffers from panic attacks. Kayla was unharmed but is guilty about that.
They only hired a small boat and once they have to race for help after the shark has taken little more than an amuse bouche out of Ruth’s leg, uber-bossy bride Lizzie (Lauren Lyle) takes charge, speeds the boat and runs it over a reef which is when they discover they only have one lifebelt and (gosh) there’s no mobile phone connection. Guess who can’t swim? Lizzie, so she gets the lifebelt. Turns out they would only have needed four anyway at this juncture because Ruth soon succumbs and in the only piece of sense that anybody exhibits they dump the body in the water, hoping that will be sufficient to satisfy the shark.
And with testosterone out of the equation and only one knife between them this isn’t the time for the hapless quartet to trade survival tales or work out clever ways to avoid being eaten. Or even cover their faces against the terrible sun with the shirts they all wear over their swimsuits. Mostly what they do is point the finger of blame and once they’ve done all that they execute a perfect reversal and each starts blaming herself for causing the situation. Kayla then decides to swim for help all the way back to their holiday beach because (I’m assuming) she’s got an unerring sense of direction or an inbuilt compass and isn’t just going to swim around in circles or miss a turn and hit Australia.
A shark fin pops up from time to time to remind us we’re not in a soap opera. Given we’re several generations away from Jaws (1975), it’s hardly surprising the characters have little in the way of shark know-how. The question isn’t really how did the women find themselves in this situation but how did anyone think it would work.
There’s not much experience on show. Movie novice Hiftu Quaseem carries the greatest emotional package in a movie that’s thin on backstory and character. Natalie Mitsom had two previous bit parts, Nicole Rieko Setsuko, one, Ellouise Shakespeare-Hart one significant movie role. Lauren Lyle, the most experienced, has the worst part of bridezilla. Directorial debut for former art director Hayley Easton Street has proved, even before release, enough of a calling card that she’s got another two movies lined up. Dialog sample – “we’re all in the same boat” / “she’s like a dog with a bone” – by movie debutante Cat Clarke gives an idea of what the actresses had to put up with.
Once I check out their CVs I feel a bit mean about being so tough on such an inexperienced bunch but I’m sure they’ll weather worse than me and, should success beckon, can write it off to experience.
On the plus side it’s only about 80 minutes long, the kind of credit that include the names of welders and audit clerks padding it out a few minutes longer.
There’s something in the water all right – a turkey.
The Magnificent 60s 